ATI has been enjoying a lot of success
with its GPUs for the last year and a half, but it has hit new highs
over the last two months by launching four new graphics cards
supporting DirectX 11. The Radeon
HD 5800 series was first out for enthusiasts in September,
followed by the Radeon
HD 5700 series for mainstream gamers.

As the only
provider of DirectX 11 GPUs out there, the graphics division of
AMD can afford to take a slower paced approach to product launches.
However, the company has decided to launch one more product just
before Black Friday and the start of the Christmas shopping
season.

“With the arrival of the ATI Radeon HD 5970, the
fastest graphics card in the world, we’ve cemented AMD as the
unquestioned graphics leader,” said Matt Skynner, Vice President
and General Manager of AMD's Graphics Group. “With the holiday
shopping season right around the corner, the new card, coupled with
the awesome power of ATI Eyefinity technology, is the ultimate setup
for serious gamers.”

The Radeon HD 5970 is targeted squarely
at bleeding edge enthusiasts who will settle for nothing but the
best. ATI is moving away from its X2 nomenclature in order to more
fully differentiate its highest end product. It combines two Cypress
cores used in the Radeon HD 5870 together in a single graphics card.
The new card uses a second generation PLX bridge in order to combine
the power of the two chips more effectively.

Using two 40nm
Cypress chips allows the new card to have double the Stream
Processors and ROPs of the Radeon 5870. However, the chips and GDDR5
RAM are only clocked at the same level as the Radeon HD 5850 in order
to conserve power. The board is rated for maximum power consumption
of 294W, and only consumes 42W at idle.

Those concerned more
with performance than power consumption need not worry. The Radeon HD
5970 uses specially screened Cypress chips, and is easily
overclockable to Radeon 5870 levels with ATI's OverDrive technology.
The board is unlocked, so overclockers can go as high as their guts
(and cooling) will allow.

In order to aid overclockers, ATI's
reference board uses proprietary high-performance digital
programmable voltage regulators made by specialty firm Volterra. Pure
ceramic supercapacitors sourced from Japan are used, and real time
power monitoring is available.

The GPUs could be overclockable
to 1GHz and beyond, while the GDDR5
RAM is rated for 1.5Ghz/5Gbps.

There are three outputs on
the card in order to enable ATI's Eyefinity multi-display technology.
Three monitors can be used at the same time using the two dual-link
DVI ports and single mini-DisplayPort. New Catalyst 9.11 drivers have
also been released, adding support for the new cards and Flash
acceleration.

The Radeon HD 5970 is available immediately at
retailers and through the channel for an MSRP of $599. The ATI Radeon
HD 5970 is supported by a wide range of add-in-board companies,
including ASK, Asus, Club 3D, Diamond, Gigabyte, High Tech, MSI,
Sapphire, Tul/Power Color, Visiontek and XFX. It also launches today
in new Alienware Area-51, Area-51 ALX and Aurora desktop PCs.

NVIDIA
has been saying that their next generation gaming GPU will be
available before the end of the year, although that has become
increasingly unlikely.

Based on the latest information
available, the Radeon HD 5970 is likely to be the fastest single card
solution for the next six months.